EL CAJON, Calif. — A jet crash reported Monday night in San Diego County is believed to have killed all four people on board, according to multiple reports.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that the Learjet 35A departed earlier Monday from John Wayne Airport in Orange County. It crashed just before 7:15 p.m. in an unincorporated area of El Cajon known as Bostonia, KSWB-TV reported.
In a statement obtained by KGTV, officials with the Federal Aviation Administration said four people were on the jet at the time of the crash. Late Monday, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said firefighters were unable to find any survivors at the scene.
The jet was on an instrument approach to a runway at nearby Gillespie Field on Monday night when officials with the NTSB said the pilot asked to switch to a visual approach to another runway. Officials said that shortly after air traffic control cleared the change, the plane crashed into a residential area about 1.4 miles from the approach end of the runway.
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The crash near the 120 block of Pepper Drive left a fiery trail of wreckage and knocked out power to hundreds of residents, according to deputies and KGTV. One home was damaged, though deputies said no one on the ground was injured.
“We felt like this giant boom, like, shake up our whole entire house,” resident Andelina Ciampi told KGTV. “I thought it was an earthquake or a boulder from this hill coming down.”
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. Investigators with the NTSB said Tuesday that they expect to be documenting and collecting evidence at the scene of the crash for about three days. Officials expect to publish a preliminary report on the circumstances surrounding the crash in “several weeks.”
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Officials said the jet was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder, though it did not have a flight data recorder.
The NTSB is expected to issue a final accident report detailing the probable cause of the crash and contributing factors in 12 to 24 months.
Monday’s crash happened just over two months after a small plane crashed near a high school in nearby Santee, killing two people, injuring two others and setting fire to at least two homes.
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